2026 is your year. I know it, because you’re going to make it your year.

I firmly believe that you have to show your time and money where it’s going, otherwise you’ll spend both willy-nilly, achieving little and feeling, well, stuck. Stalled out. Like you’re settling for a life you don’t really want.

That’s what inspired me to launch Life Between Weekends more than a decade ago. I had been furiously pursuing a career in magazines, but I realized my Sundays were filled with dread, my weekdays were full of hustle, and Saturdays were spent catching up. It wasn’t a way to live. It was just existing, with the hopes that a flashy enough title would fulfill me. (It didn’t.)

What did? Setting goals that added purpose and direction to my days and expanded my focus beyond that week’s deadline or whatever drama was eating away at me.

Over the years, we’ve explored goal-setting worksheets, TOP assessments and even anti-goals—aka cutting things out and committing to doing less in order to feel more. This year, I wanted to focus on the things that bring us to a flow state: The area where your passion and purpose align, and talent builds gradually. It’s a satisfying place to work from and makes even the mundane must-do’s more meaningful.

Here are the questions I’m asking myself, based on habit and goal-setting research I’ve read over the years, to set my 2026 goals. Grab a journal, write without editing yourself, and see what tumbles out, won’t you?

1. What set you alive over the past year?

By that, I mean, what are the things that you get excited to talk to people about, even if it makes their eyes glaze over? What are the topics that come up again and again in your TikTok, YouTube or Instagram algorithm? What makes you lose all sense of time as you work on that project (or those projects)?

Jot everything down freeform, then rank them in order of how much they excite you. Commit to exploring two to three of those things over the next year.

2. What do other people expect you to do?

Jot down everything that comes to mind. Now, evaluate what you wrote down. Which of those things do you genuinely need to do?

Ex: If you’re a parent, taking care of your kids is a must. Helping them learn to regulate their emotions? A must. Signing them up for half a dozen after-school activities and then creating a complex pick-up and drop-off schedule that makes you stress out every afternoon, constantly feeling like you’re forgetting something and never having a second to yourself? Less so.

The whole point of this question is to critically analyze your external demands and expectations and sift through what you want for your life, ensuring you’re living on your terms, not what your mom or grandpa or judgy pseudo-friend (or any other societal pressure) projects onto you.

Discard what doesn’t make sense for your life.

3. List 6+ goals for your year ahead. If you only achieved 3 of them, which would they be?

Consider a range of areas for your life as you write down those like-to-achieve ideas, big and small:

• The things that set you alive + the things that’d make you feel good about yourself at the end of 2026 when it comes to your…
  • Career
  • Hobbies/Side Hustles
  • Friendships
  • Family
  • Community
  • Love Life
  • Physical Health
  • Mental Health
  • Finances
  • Spiritual Life

Now, take another pass, reflecting on those goals and your answers to questions one and two. Are you living a life you want or somebody else’s? How do these goals feel?

I intentionally set more goals than I can achieve, both to stretch me and see where my interests truly lie. Often, I find I list goals I’d like to achieve but don’t really care to pursue, and through quarterly goal reviews (where I look back at this list), I can get a true sense of where my heart lies.

Or where I’m being lazy. (Like setting up my will and trust—I’ve dragged my feet on that for years because I struggled so much with making some of those decisions, and they’re not nearly as fun as, say, learning to paddle board or launching this website.)

Consider your top three goals your North star for the year ahead, and take a few minutes to break them down into micro-steps, ensuring they’re specific and actionable, like dropping 10 pounds by walking 10K steps a day, at least five days a week, and limiting dessert to twice a week vs. “lose weight and feel healthier.”

Here’s to an engaging, enlightening, fulfilling year ahead.